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28 Mo. 469

Northcraft v. Martin

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided March 15, 1859

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1859-03-15

Louis Land Cowrt. Demurrer to a petition. Plaintiffs alleged substantially that Lewis Martin died leaying plaintiffs and defendants in this suit his sole heirs ; that all of said heirs joined in a petition for partition of certain premises that had descended to them as heirs of said Martin; that a decree or order of sale was made; that a sale was made and the sheriff acting under the said order sold the premises to the defendant William C. Martin; that immediately prior to…

Relies on State v. Randolph

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1859-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently April 1942

7 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Richardson, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2It is unnecessary to decide whether the demurrer was improperly sustained for the reasons assigned by the plaintiff, because, in our opinion, for other reasons, the petition stated facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. If William C. Martin, after making the agreement with the heirs, purchased the property at the sale in partition under the cir*471cumstances stated in the petition, he became clothed with a trust for all the parties interested in the sale, which he could not throw off without committing a fraud. The legal title to the land by the sale Tested in him, but he held it in trust for the other heirs, and the substantial rights of the parties were not changed or affected by the sale; and, if the allegations of the petition are sustained, the court by a decree should declare the trust, which may be executed by another sale. As to the lots purchased by Heislen, a resale should not be ordered if he bought in good faith or for a fair price, inasmuch as the heirs could be fully indemnified out of the purchase money.

¶3A petition is not demurrable because it asks a judgment not warranted by the averments; nor is its true character determined by the relief it seeks, for when there is a defence the court may grant any relief consistent with the case made and embraced within the issue. (2 R. S. 1855, p. 1280, § 12 ; Ashby v. Winston, 26 Mo. 213.)

¶4The other judges concurring, the judgment will be reversed and the cause remanded.

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